Chiropractic Is Quackery
While spinal manipulation MAY help SOME low back pain, manipulation can easily be done by other health professionals that are MUCH safer for patients, such as physical therapists.
The main danger of chiropractic is that most chiropractors are not trained in proper diagnosis and may delay referring you to a real doctor, even for life-threatening conditions.
Another danger is that chiropractors have a pseudoscientific belief system and often recommend dangerous, expensive, or bizarre treatments that are completely worthless.
Chiropractic is also dangerous for potential students. Chiropractors have the highest student loan default rates of any health profession. Many private insurers will not pay for chiropractic, so new graduates increasingly must try to sell patients expensive and unnecessary "pre-paid care plans" or risk defaulting on their student loans.
The purpose of this lens is to promote skeptical thinking about chiropractic, and to dissuade students from taking out chiropractic college loans.
Please forward this lens to any friends or family members who are considering visiting a chiropractor (or becoming one) so they can get the facts and make an informed choice.
Don't become a chiropractor
Here's why to avoid this career
Chiropractors have the highest student loan default rates of any healthcare profession.(If you don't believe me, just follow the links on this page.)
The average chiropractor (DC) graduates with over $100,000 in student loan debt, yet can usually make only around $30,000 as an associate doctor. This figure often includes no health insurance, retirement, vacation, or other benefits.
As an associate doctor, your main job will be to RECRUIT PATIENTS, which basically means to indoctrinate them into the idea that they need to come to your office three times a week for the rest of their lives.
This is accomplished by scaring patients and telling them they have a fake lesion called a subluxation. This is, of course, pure quackery. Only chiropractors believe that subluxations exist. No other doctor or scientist has ever found one.
In reality, you are just cracking the joints of a patient's back and your treatment can have no effect on health (other than maybe easing some minor back pain). There is no evidence that getting joints cracked regularly is good -- it just costs the patient extra money and may even cause ligament laxity.
Many modern chiros will tell you that they don't treat subluxations and that they are evidence based. Don't fall for this one. If chiropractic was truly "evidence based", it wouldn't even need to exist as a profession since physical therapists and physicians can crack joints for back pain.
Some chiropractors claim they can help all kinds of things which they have no business treating. Some claim they can treat diabetes, ADD, hormone problems, depression, even cancer... just by cracking someone's joints.
The cost of chiropractic college is high. Over $80,000 for just tuition. This does not include books, equipment, very expensive licensing exams, etc., -- not to mention the years of lost wages while you are a full time student.
Students will often hear reports of chiropractors making big bucks. This is usually false data that is coming from chiropractic sources. The reality for new grads is that it is almost impossible to open up your own clinic, and the student loan default rate for chiropractors is extremely high.
Before you go into serious debt to become a chiropractor, please research the links provided on the page and seriously consider the information presented. You may avoid a poor choice that will hurt you for years to come in the form of lost time and a huge debt burden.
Chiropractor Is Voted "Most Overrated Career"
"Chiropractor" has been voted Most Overrated Career by U.S. News & World Report magazine for 2007.Click HERE for the full story
According to the magazine: "Some chiropractors think their discipline can cure everything from headaches to sciatica, asthma to premenstrual syndrome. But the Federal Trade Commission only allows chiropractors to claim they can treat low back pain. And even so, research shows that mainstream treatments for lower back pain are equally effective. Many chiropractors also devote considerable time to marketing-in part to pay back the cost of chiropractic school, usually over $100,000."
Chiropractic Links
Links Promoting The Skeptical Discussion Of Chiropractic
Stroke and Chiropractors
In the early morning hours of a cold day in Novemb more...2 points
Chirotalk: The Skeptical Chiropractic Discussion Forum - Home
The #1 Chiropractic Discussion Forum on the intern more...1 point
American Student Loan DEBT Crisis
Includes info about Chiro College Student Loan Deb more...1 point
Chirobase: Your Skeptical Guide to Chiropractic History, Theories, and Practices
A comprehensive site exposing chiropractic quacker more...0 points
The Student Loan Mess: Why Chiropractic Is in Trouble
This article shows why so many chiropractors defau more...0 points
Improper Claims on Chiropractic College Web Sites
This article how chiropractic college lie on their more...0 points
A Warning for Pre-Chiropractic Students
A personal essay on what it's like to be a Doctor more...0 points
http://www.defaulteddocs.dhhs.gov/l
List of doctors who have defaulted on their Health more...0 points
Confessions of a Quackbuster
I confess to being a skeptic who is concerned abou more...0 points
ChiroWatch - All you need to know about chiropractic
CHIROWATCH.COM - We educate the public about the r more...0 points
Skeptical Chiropractic Videos on Youtube
Watch them and create your own
Is Chiropractic Dangerous?
Ask An Injured Patient
Check out this list of websites and organizations started by patients who were injured by chiropractic treatment:
Click HERE to see list
If you become a chiropractor, there is a very real possibility that you will hurt someone. Chiropractors mainly hurt people due to their lack of training in diagnosis (they try to treat critical emergency cases with useless chiro treatments).
But sometimes they stroke people out by doing unnecessary neck manipulations.
Buyer Beware!
How you can help fight Chiropractic Quackery
Together, we can spread the word
#2 -- Post VIDEOS on Youtube.
Until recently, Youtube was totally overrun with chiropractic quackery. This gave a false sense of legitimacy to pseudoscience and put patients and students at risk.
Please continue to post news segments (if you have permission) about injured chiropractic patients, chiropractic student loan defaults, chiropractors getting arrested for fraud advertising, etc.
And if you have video production skills, consider creating a short video. It can even be just a "slideshow" with research, facts, or links to where consumers can go for more information. If you need links to research to back-up what you say, please email me and I will be glad to help.
Your efforts could help prevent someone getting swindled by a chiropractor or even having a stroke from an unnecessary manipulation. Thanks!
Reader Feedback
Here are the latest cheers and jeers from chiroskeptics and chiro true believers.
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Posted April 30, 2009
DoctorSJ wrote...
in reply to Wakeup1 Your first comment is called an "Argument From Authority" fallacy. Or as your mama used to say, "If the famous athletes jumped off the bridge, would you jump off the bridge too?"
Second argument: Malpractice is lower for chiropractors because they don't do LIFE SAVING MEDICAL PROCEDURES. Of course, the malpractice insurance for a brain surgeon (which you ain't) is obviously higher, since they actually do something. Chiropractors just pretend to remove imaginary subluxations while cracking joints of the back (like cracking your knuckles). Sometimes, though, they unfortunately give a patient or two a stroke as a side effect of their quackery game.
Posted March 18, 2009
Wakeup1
It is interesting to read how naive some of you are. If chiropractic is "quackery", then why do the majority of professional teams have Chiropractors on their medical staff? And why do all Olympic athletes have chiropractors on their medical staff? And why does the U.S. Armed services offer chiropractic to its soldier if it is "quackery". Some of the world's most prestigious athletes (Lance Armstrong, Jerry Rice, and so on) must be idiots to take such a "risk" by being seen by a chiropractor. Why would professional athletes "risk" their careers on medical treatment that harmful o their bodies? "Us" professionals on chiropractic must be missing something that the PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES AND THE GOVERNMENT is seeing. >>>If chiropractic is so horrible, then why is malpractice so low for the doctors? Isn't it the insurance companies' primary goal to access the "risk" of a profession? They must be wrong too!
Posted February 24, 2009
Skeeeeeetz wrote...
Dr SJ,
I always find it intriguing when trained doctors of chiropractic argue a point with reference to a study that provides some evidence to the contrary. An excerpt form the article mentioned in the previous comment states:
The subtle adjustment is practiced by the very small subgroup of chiropractors certified in National Upper Cervical Chiropractic (NUCCA) techniques. The procedure employs precise measurements to determine a patient's Atlas vertebra alignment. If realignment is deemed necessary, the chiropractor uses his or her hands to gently manipulate the vertebra.
"We are not doctors. We are spinal engineers," Dickholtz says. "We use mathematics, geometry, and physics to learn how to slide everything back into place."
Maybe you can help me for I am not a doctor or a "spinal engineer", but I read this as one specific technique than very few are trained in is shown to lower blood pressure. This still doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the chiropractic community.
Posted February 17, 2009
drcarr2
Doctor SJ,
Maybe you could not "hack it" as a medical professional, but there is plenty of documented evidence that spinal manipulation is beneficial for numerous issues besides "low back pain." You come to my office and tell the hundreds of children I have helped with asthma, scoliosis, and bowel issues to name a few that we are quacks, and then look their parents in the eyes and let them know that there kids are still secretly having asthma attacks just hiding it from them because what we do is a lie. Your biased blog is worse than fox news. Here is a small article I just ran across, wow what does it say...spinal manipulation lowers blood pressure...and published...wow that is quackery at its best!
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/news/20070316/chiropractic-cuts-blood-pressure
Posted February 17, 2009
